Having easy access to water at a sporting field is “a pretty standard thing” says Ashley Parker, longtime volunteer for BelSouth FC. 

But at the Hawker Playing Fields, Ashley says the ACT government took away the tap and crimped it up, so there’s no water.

“On the game days we purchase some large water drums so people could fill up, but any other day of the week when they’re doing training here they can’t access it, maybe they can go into the toilet and try and jam their water bottle under the shallow sink and try and fill it up but that’s basically impossible,” he says.

BelSouth FC president Dot Hendrie says the lack of easy water access is just the tip of the iceberg, and that she has spent the three years of her presidency unsuccessfully campaigning for repairs and upgrades at the Hawker Playing Fields. 

Four years ago, Ashley and Dot say Sport Minister Yvette Berry made a promise that, if re-elected, the Hawker Playing Fields would receive $1.3 million worth of upgrades.

This was part of a larger $17 million package allocated to upgrading existing sportsgrounds across Canberra, according to the ACT Labor website.

Dot says the funding was meant to see the upgrade of storage, canteen, change room and bathroom facilities, along with the replacement of the existing lights with LED lights, and to see the lighting extended to the top field.

Dot says none of these things have been done, even the broken guttering has not been fixed, leaving the area prone to flooding.

The club is currently using shipping containers and a small room that is part of the canteen and toilet facilities for storage, says Dot. 

“One of the catchphrases was they were going to have ‘female friendly’ changing spaces,” Ashley says. 

“No one’s got any changing spaces, regardless of their gender.”

Despite the already inadequate storage space, Ashley says the club recently received a message from the government requesting they remove all items from the main building so that the space could be converted into a disabled toilet. 

“The existing toilets, the girls have two bays, and the guys have one bay and a urinal, in each of them one of the bays is big enough to accommodate people that might be in a wheelchair, it even has rails and things installed in there,” he says. 

“So the facilities are actually already there, the toilets may have needed a bit of a redesign to make sure they could easily get in, but they’re actually there. 

“Additionally, if you do have mobility issues, you’re in a wheelchair or something, there’s no disabled parking.

“And then there’s no ramps to get out of the car park, you’ve got to come across grass, and eventually maybe you can come down here and utilise this.”

Maintenance of the field has also fallen to the club, Dot says, and they don’t have enough volunteers to do it all.

“For two, three years we’ve been purely self funded, managing ourselves and everything,” says Dot. 

“So this year we’ve actually called out to small businesses to see what we have in our club, potentially we have someone, a handyman or something who can come put that gutter back on, can come fix the holes in the roof and that sort of stuff.

“We’re at that point that nothing else is going to help us and we’re sick of feeling like we’re complaining.”

Dot says BelSouth FC is a very community focused club that prioritises the love of football and having fun over pursuing Division One all the time. 

“It’s about parents getting involved and everything, and I believe if we don’t have that support from the government, we’re going to keep losing people because they look at these big, shiny clubs that have the money and have their own sites,” she says.

“Community football in Canberra is dying.”

“I can tell that the engagement levels have just dropped off with the ACT government because whatever they say they’re going to do, they don’t,” says Ashley.

“There’s just no faith in the support that the government provides local sporting clubs, our experience has just been abysmal.”

Dot says they have already had to start having a conversation with Belwest about the possibility of merging the teams, as the increasing demand on volunteers has become too difficult to maintain.

Sport Minister Yvette Berry did not respond when asked for a comment.